A simple, fast paced story with vibrant animation and simple characters makes for a solid time killer but nothing more. Bolt is very much like a Saturday morning cartoon souped up and blown up for the big screen with a few inspired scenes, some laughs, but with a premise that’s hard to swallow even in a cartoon world.
Bolt The Superdog (voiced by John Travolta) really isn’t. He’s a television action star who doesn’t know he’s a television action star and therefore believes he possesses the many superpowers awarded by the show’s special effects department. Furthermore, he’s just as sure it’s his life’s mission to once a week, 26 weeks a year, save co-star Penny (voiced by Miley Cyrus) from the villainy clutches of the green eyed Dr. Calico (voiced by Malcolm McDowell).
After an imaginative, energetic opening chase sequence that’s revealed to be a part of the television show, events conspire to convince Bolt that Penny’s been kidnapped and quite by accident ship the poor deluded pooch from Los Angeles to the big bad city of Manhattan. Still convinced he has superpowers but not sure as to why they won’t work, Bolt hooks up with an alley cat named Mittens (voiced by Susie Essman), a hamster named Rhino (voiced by Mark Walton), and embarks on the cross-country trip to save “his human.”
No doubt you can fill in the cartoon blanks from here. Think Shrek or most any animated road film that involves a protagonist in desperate need of an arc and on a journey with wacky characters that tag along for the comic relief. Thank the movie gods, though, there are no songs.
A screenwriter’s allowed to create whatever world their heart desires but within that world rules must still apply that are true to that world. Never for a moment did I buy Bolt’s premise that this dog believed he had superpowers. It may sound silly to gripe at a cartoon’s logic but much of the plot and all of the protagonist’s emotional growth emanates from an idea so flawed and poorly constructed that the gags and character beats based on it frequently come off as, well, stupid.
You might be able to buy into the idea that show’s director (voiced by James Lipton) doesn’t want Bolt to ever know he’s mortal; you may even buy that the television show’s large-scale action set pieces are filmed in real time without the rehearsal or second takes that would give the game away; but Bolt has a lot of downtime in his trailer and it’s well beyond a stretch to think he wouldn’t catch on sometime.
All this really means is that unlike the great stuff coming from Pixar, Bolt isn’t anywhere near as much fun for parents as for children. Kids aren’t dumb though, and they’re certain to feel something missing even if they can’t articulate it, but at ninety-six fast paced minutes they won’t much care.
With little more than surface characterizations and relationships, Bolt doesn’t aspire to much, but its saving grace is an easygoing story that coasts along to a fairly predictable climax. Unlike Disney’s non-Pixar offering last year, Meet The Robinsons, which was so overeager to please it devolved into a hectic, headache inducing spastic attack, Bolt is what it is, knows what it is, and in workmanlike fashion does the job.
Nothing all that wrong with that.
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